I was “born gay” (and 100% gay - a Kinsey 6), with a relatively normal molestation-free childhood in suburbia.

My homosexual feelings (and there were many many pre-sexual “sexual attractions” as early as 3 or 4) felt to me as natural as can be; I’m sure exactlly like heteros feel toward the oppostie sex. However, the message was (and apparently still is): “you’re not right.” Allowed to be who I was, I might have dated as a teenager, maybe met that special someone in my 20s or 30s, started a life. But that couldn’t happen becaue I had to suppress my attraction for fear of abandonment, physical harm, ostracism, you name it. When i came out at 19 (in 1983), lots of damage had been done. I will not get into those details. I’m a functioning member of society working on a Ph.D., with some great friends (tolerant and progressive friends). I’m such a romantic - I still want very deeply that idealized life with my one-and-only.

Many of you probably have felt the effects of prejudice in one form or another. I think that lots of inroads have been made toward erasing lots of racism and sexism (not all the way, but lots). Homosexuality is still being debated.

Some gay people are cynical - it’s hard not to be. But being exposed to scientists, politicians, religious clergy debating about whether you are “acceptable”, whether you’re “normal”, whether you’re nature or nurture, whether you should have the same rights as everyone else, whether you can be “cured”, actually debating your worth because you’re homosexual - I can’t describe how much that hurts, even when I roll my eyes, even when I remind myself that we’ve still come a long way, even when I remember all the people who are my friends and family and who love me.

Homosexuality has been around since humankind, in every part of the world. It has never proven harmful. It is a fact, a biological phenomenon, not a choice.

When will “this, too, pass”?

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“The hands that help are better far than the lips that pray.”
— Robert G. Ingersoll

[quote author=“NobleSavage”]Of course, logically, if people are born gay, it means that God made them that way and it’s not a choice and therefore not a sin.

The standard move to make here is to say that being gay is not a sin. What is a sin is acting on the behavioural predisposition (having intercourse with members of the same sex) that comes with being gay. Different people have predispositions to different sorts of sins (predispositions to drug addiction, to sexual promiscuity, to violent tempers, etc.), but those predispositions don’t excuse sinful acts.

This is a logically consistent position - but I think you’re right that it carries with it a touch of cognitive dissonance.

[quote author=“NobleSavage”]Roger, since you’re an atheist, I guess you’re living proof that getting rid of Islamo-Christianity won’t get rid of bigotry.

I’m pretty sure that, for the vast majority of anti-gay Christians, their anti-gay attitudes are mostly independent of their religion. They just latch on to one or two Bible verses to justify the prejudices they have in any case. I’ve met some exceptions here and there (reluctant bigots: they don’t want to be anti-gay, but they think the Bible tells them to be anti-gay) - but they are expections.

[quote author=“rogerflat”]I do admit that seemingly bisexual and gender changing behaviors are somewhat common. Male dogs often hump other male dogs etc. But gender roles are mainly a human thing within our society. I’m sure animals don’t grasp what it means to be “male” or “female”. And without that understanding how would they know if they were acting gay or straight, and why would it even matter at that point. It would just be part of their natural behavior.

So, assuming animals are currently unaware that they’re acting in a homosexual way. . . what are you suggesting would compel them to stop doing it if they were to become aware? If it was “natural behavior” for them before, what would now make them feel it’s unnatural?

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I’m an atheist but I don’t think people are born gay. People are just predisposed to making bad choices in life. It’s all part of being human. It would be like saying some people are born to go to prison. Or born to be drug addicts.

I know it is late in the thread, but I would like to pick a couple of bones here, Roger. I think anyone who had ever watched a gay person grow up, especially close to them, would disagree with your assumption.

My nephew, Shawn, was gay (I say was ‘cause he was a fairly early AIDS casualty), and he grew up about a mile from where my ex-wife and I lived. It was obvious from an early age that he was somehow different then my son who was about the same age. Looking back, there were many things I saw but didn’t see, if you know what I mean. Now, the scientific evidence is clear, and there is just no doubt about it.

On the addiction thing, please don’t try and tell me that certain substances that aren’t necessarily addictive to all aren’t addictive to me. Alcohol, for instance, has a different effect on me then it has on 90% of the general population. If I have a drink, I tend to break out in spots, like Denver, Miami, New York, etc.. You get the idea. I have a drink, or some drugs & I absolutely cannot predict the outcome.

The first drink is, as you say, a choice, but that’s where my choices end. On the gay thing, do the research & I think you might change your mind.

[quote author=“Bad_Conduct”]You can’t be born gay, because there is no physical difference.

Obviously, being gay is a choice.

Bad_Conduct the neuroscientist, everyone.

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What do I care for a hell for oppressors? What good can hell do, since those children have already been tortured? And what becomes of harmony, if there is hell? I want to forgive. I want to embrace. I don’t want more suffering. And if the sufferings of children go to swell the sum of sufferings which was necessary to pay for truth, then I protest that the truth is not worth such a price.
-Ivan Karamazov

Can someone from the “homosexuality is a choice” group direct us to where one learns how or is made to be homosexual? Because if one small lesson can convince someone to voluntarily join a social group in which injury or death, ridicule, desertion of friends and family, open discrimination, and a reduction of constitutional rights, then we all should study the method so it may be applied to other disciplines of education. A lesson so powerful it trumps everything else society teaches that is right.

In the spirit of St. Patrick’s Day, I offer a bigot’s joke to illustrate my point:

Q: How is St. Patrick’s Day different from Martin Luther King Jr. Day?
A: On St. Patrick’s Day everyone wants to be Irish.

Who would WANT to be gay? What is the benefit?

Getting back to the article, did anyone see the blatant contradiction of religion depending on science to prevent homosexuality in utero? What’s the matter, can’t make a Bible small enough to fit in there? It is a victory for science when religion invites atheistic scientists to solve a religious problem.

I’m pretty sure that, for the vast majority of anti-gay Christians, their anti-gay attitudes are mostly independent of their religion. They just latch on to one or two Bible verses to justify the prejudices they have in any case. I’ve met some exceptions here and there (reluctant bigots: they don’t want to be anti-gay, but they think the Bible tells them to be anti-gay) - but they are expections.

Yet, the non-Abrahamic-religion societies that I’m aware of had a well adjusted attitude toward bisexuality. The ancient Greeks and Romans didn’t even have a word for “gay”. They wouldn’t know what Mohler was even talking about. Love and sex was all the same to them regardless of the gender.

It’s my assertion that the Abrahamic faiths are to blame for much of the bigotry in our society regarding sexual orientation.